When Love Fails
by AWanderingSoulSometimesLost
Summary: In a starless night, Rumpelstiltskin talks to his son.


**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

 **I'm sorry for any grammar or spelling mistake.**

The night was dark, sky starless. Dirt was wet and vapid under the skin, wind's bites icy and sharp like a blade. Stone was firm and cold against one's back, the chilliness cutting down to the bones buried beneath.

The dead were silent, as the dead would be.

"Why did you kiss her, Papa? The Evil Queen? Isn't she… evil?"

On Rumple's right, Bae's dark eyes were wide with puzzlement under locks of his black hair. His smooth forehead filled with lines as he frowned, his young heart failing to understand what had driven his father into the Evil Queen's arms. Rumple let out a sound he couldn't define himself, something dancing on the thin line between a chuckle and a sob. He had forgotten how innocent children were. How clear and straightforward the world seemed through their eyes.

He sighed, turning his head away from his son, not wanting to see the pain in his eyes. He had hurt Baelfire enough, more than he could ever make up for.

"You wouldn't understand, Bae." _Your father is not a hero, as simple as that._ "Please don't ask."

Silence was more painful than words, even if it lasted less than a heartbeat.

"Maybe _I_ would."

On Rumple's left, the older version of Baelfire sat leaned on his own gravestone, watching him with the same dark eyes. With the same begging there, with the same offer. He wasn't there to judge. He was there to simply _listen_.

Rumple chose to turn to the older Baelfire. Maybe it was the maturity in his features, the lines on his face that proved he had come to realize the world was not black and white, but rather made of many shades of grey. Maybe it was because the last time he had seen his son like this, he was dying before him and Rumple could do nothing to save him. Maybe he just wanted another memory to remember him by.

"What happened to you, Papa?" Bae asked, but there was no judging to his voice, no anger. He was simply curious.

But how could he not know the answer? How could _anyone_ not know it?

"You died, Bae." The words felt like salt on Rumple's tongue. They felt as if the sky had come crushing down on him. " _Everything_ I'd done, good _and_ bad, I did it to find _you_. To say I'm sorry. To earn your forgiveness, your trust, your love."

He pressed his hands against his face, the skin damp beneath his palms.

"But it was all for nothing!" His hands clenched into fists, sending a pang of black magic into the equally black sky, before his body collapsed against the gravestone weakly, as empty as his soul. "It was all _in vain_."

It was a night of half-a-moment-long silences.

"But you found me." Bae placed a comforting hand on top of Rumple's own. It was lighter and colder than a gust of wind. "You reunited me with Emma and Henry. You saved us all from Pan. It wasn't for nothing."

"But you still died!" Rumple's head snapped up, the words spat angrily – _helplessly_ , with pain and anger and _failure_.

 _I did_ _ **everything**_ _right! I found you, I tried to be better for you,_ _ **I died for you**_ _! And it still wasn't enough! You still_ _ **died**_ _– and I had to live at the expense of your life because those pathetic heroes just_ _ **had**_ _to be saved!_

When he looked at his son again, Bae's features were blurry through the tears, but still clear enough to distinguish the sorrow and compassion they were filled with. Still, Rumple decided to speak his mind – who was there to hear him?

(Who had ever even bothered to listen?)

"I did everything right, Bae," He let out a shaky breath that turned into a white fog before his face, "And I still lost you."

 _Being good doesn't mean good things will happen._

He had done right by Bae, by everyone in this cursed little town.

He had played by the rules of heroes – and lost.

The most important person in his life, the thing he wanted more than anything in this or any other world – more than power, more than his other son, more than Belle – was gone forever. The North Star he had been following for centuries had died out and without its light on the sky of his life – Bae's light – all Rumple had left was the Darkness.

So what was the point of being good then? What was the point of pushing the Darkness away, when _it_ had never failed him?

"And now that you're dead, why should I bother anymore?" He wiped the tears away and stood up, moving so he could see both of his son's faces. "You're the one who mattered the most and I still failed you."

He turned away from the gravestone, ready to take his leave. He had spent enough time feeling pain he didn't have to feel. With help from a certain black-haired beauty, he could forget it, push it deep beneath dark, lustful kisses, beneath greedy, demanding bites. He could stop pretending he was what he had never been – _a hero_.

In her arms, in her eyes, he could be the Dark One.

"What about Belle?" The voice of the older Baelfire came from behind Rumple's back. "And your other son?"

Rumple stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around.

"All they see is the Dark One." But unlike the Evil Queen, they hated him for it – and he was tired of their hate, of their contempt. If they couldn't love the Dark One, then they couldn't love Rumpelstiltskin either, because they were one and the same. "I'm done trying to prove otherwise."

Another moment of deafening silence.

"I wish you could just be happy, Papa."

When Rumple turned around, the graveyard was empty.

A bitter grin escaped his lips. His own mind never ceased to be cruel, even to him, didn't it?

Happy? No, the real Bae – not a silhouette Rumple's magic had conjured – wouldn't have asked of him to be _happy_. He would have asked of him to be _good_ , to be a hero.

Darkness engulfed the lone figure in the graveyard.

Sky was starless.


End file.
